


Splendor

by sibley (ferns)



Category: Stargirl (TV 2020)
Genre: Bisexual Female Character, Coming Out, F/F, Friendship, Gen, Horrendous Dad Jokes, Lesbian Character, Trans Female Character, Trans Male Character, a brief cameo by hootie the eurasian eagle-owl
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:00:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25121299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ferns/pseuds/sibley
Summary: Sylvester may have been the first person Pat took under his wing who was still working through some issues surrounding their identity. He definitely wasnotthe last.
Relationships: Minor or Background Relationship(s), Yolanda Montez/Courtney Whitmore
Comments: 11
Kudos: 84





	Splendor

**Author's Note:**

> I think if I was in the same room as Pat I would have no choice but to come out to him. All other thoughts would be replaced by the need to tell him so I could hear him say he supports me.
> 
> [ **CW:** this fic contains a minor trying unsuccessfully to initiate a relationship with a responsible adult, allusions to abusive/toxic/etc homes and potentially unsupportive/homophobic families, and mentions of outing both consensual and not.]

“Was Starman really Courtney’s dad?”

Pat jumps and hits his head on the edge of the doorway to STRIPE’s cockpit. Oh, great, now he’s calling it “STRIPE” mentally too. He’s already slipped up and said it a few times around Courtney, which she luckily hasn’t picked up on to tease him about yet. “Holy—I mean, Jesus, kid, you scared me.”

“Sorry.” Beth doesn’t sound very sorry. She’s peering up at him with Hootie on her arm, cleaning his beak on her glove. She must’ve just given him a treat. How she feels so confident putting her fingers anywhere near that living set of knives is a mystery to him. “But was Starman actually Courtney’s dad? She said he was, and I believe her, and you never said he _wasn’t,_ but Chuck says…”

She trails off and absently taps her goggles. He climbs down to wipe his hands off and maybe get some ice from the freezer for his head. At least he’s not bleeding, but it _hurt._ “Why wouldn’t he be her dad?”

Beth bites her lip and scratches Hootie’s horns. “Wasn’t he…” She trails off again. “Chuck knows everything Dr. McNider knew. Especially stuff about the JSA, because they were his friends. So he knew about Starman.” She pats the top of her owl’s head. “And I know people’s identities can change, and there’s a lot of ways he could’ve still had Courtney. But—I mean—he was gay, wasn’t he?”

Honestly, Pat’s surprised it took her this long to ask. It’s something he’s been wondering about since he tried to tell Courtney when she first posed the theory of her being Starman’s daughter to him. Because… “Yeah. I think I was the first person he ever told.”

There’s a memory of gangly seventeen-year-old limbs climbing over the center console of his car. Settling on top of him before he has time to register more than confusion. A sloppy kiss that’s clearly only ever been practiced at a handful of high-school parties during games of truth or dare on girls who ended up next to him. _“Would this make you feel better?”_

A hand pushing back on a chest and a _“Sylvester, no.”_

 _“C’mon, I hate it when you use my full name like that.”_ Trying to lean back in again.

 _“Buddy, this is serious.”_ Having to be firm even though he wants to be gentle about this, because this is the only way it _could_ ever go but he still wants to make sure he knows it’s not because of something he did wrong. _“You know I’m too old for you, right? Even if it doesn’t feel like I’m_ that _much older, I still_ am. _And… look, even if you weren’t a kid, I’ve known you since you were fifteen. I can’t, okay? There’ll be other… other guys. If that’s what you’re into. It’s okay if that’s who you like. There’ll be other ones. But not me, or anyone else my age while you’re still a kid.”_

_“...Whatever. It was just a joke, anyway.”_

Angry. Of course he is. He doesn’t realize this isn’t personal. It’s the right thing to do. Feeling guilty anyway, because it’s his job to worry about that damn kid. At least this is one position he won’t back down on. Not even _thinking_ about the other possibility of why he’d do something like this because Sylvester knows, yeah, and he’s tactless at the best of times, but he’s a good kid. A good kid who evidently likes men. _“Syl—”_

Climbing back into the passenger seat and crossing his arms and scowling out the window. _“Can you just take me home?”_

“I know he could’ve figured stuff out later down the line, or something, and that a lot of people do, and I know I go back and forth a lot,” Beth says fast, and the picture fades. She rocks anxiously on her heels until Hootie coos at her and she goes back to petting him. “And I’ve done lots of research and stuff, so I know people can do other things. Obviously. There are a lot of ways to have a kid. But was he her dad?”

“I don’t know,” Pat admits. “Maybe he was. Like you said, a lot of things could’ve happened. But I didn’t know about that when I met Barbara and Courtney. Maybe that’s why the staff works for her, maybe it’s not. I don’t think we’re ever really going to know for sure. The only way we could really know was if Starman told us himself, and he’s gone.”

Beth scratches the back of Hootie’s head, just where he likes it. He half closes his eyes and leans back into her fingers. It really is weird how much she takes after the old Dr. Mid-nite, even though they’ve obviously never met. “...How old was he when he told you?”

“It was the day after his seventeenth birthday. He told the JSA right after they invited him to join. I think he was trying to prove a point. Especially since he’d already gotten them to invite me even though they were only after him.” Pat smiles. _That_ was a good day. A good time.

There’s another memory, one that’s much better, and from later down the line, after various awkward teenage phases had been grown out of.

Green Lantern and the Flash continuing to congratulate on membership, Johnny offering a drink. A surprised smile because this is only the second time it’s gone well. There’s a reason he latched onto Pat more than his biological family. Wildcat nudging from behind and saying _“He’s a good kid.”_

 _“I know. The best.”_ Feeling proud is maybe a little _too_ vain, but that doesn’t stop him. Having more say in who Sylvester’s turned out to be than his own family has been a difficult job. Or rather it _is_ a difficult job, because he’s pretty sure he’ll be doing it until he goes to an early grave after the stress that idiot puts him through finally gives him a heart attack. 

_“You did a good job.”_

_“Well,_ I _didn’t have much to do—”_

The Flash, this time. _“Oh, please. He practically worships you. Anyone who can handle someone like_ that _and teach them to be more of a hero…”_

The memory dissolves as Beth says, “You know I’m something too, right?”

It’s not surprising. She _did_ just say she “went back and forth.” But even before that, it was relatively easy to spot the signs. The stars in her eyes whenever she talked about certain scientists and the occasional celebrity. Maybe he’s just taught himself how to see the signs. Better to figure it out on your own or be told than to find out the way Sylvester had ended up telling him.

At least she doesn’t sound nervous while she tells him. Just the same cheerful kid she appears to always have been. God, creepy ability to communicate with that owl aside, she’s a _really_ good kid. Courtney’s more like Sylvester than she is, but they both have that enthusiasm about the job that makes his head hurt.

“Yeah. I know. And you know if someone starts giving you sh—if someone starts giving you any crap for it or for anything else, you can always come stay with Courtney, right?” Pat checks. She seems pretty dependent on her parents to put it mildly, so if they know they’re probably fine with it, but… you never know. It’s always good to make sure he’s covering all their bases for them.

Beth nods. “I know. Courtney tells us that all the time. But I don’t! My parents love me.” She makes a little humming sound at Hootie. “Well, maybe they won’t after they find out I let Hootie hang out in the bathroom on New Year’s Eve because I was worried he’d get scared of the fireworks.”

He’d _known_ it was a mistake to let her keep that damn bird. Ah, well. At least it makes her happy, and her parents don’t know he was the one who told her she could keep it.

* * *

“Rick’s sick, so he’s taking the day off,” Courtney informs Pat as she dumps her backpack on the floor by the stairs to the upper level of the garage.

Rick, who _does_ look a little paler than usual and is wearing a massive sweatshirt, glares at her. “I’m not sick.”

“You almost passed out in chemistry today,” Beth says, putting her bag down gently beside Courtney’s. She waves at Hootie, who somehow ended up in the rafters while Pat wasn’t looking. He’d be surprised if it turned out that weird owl didn’t just follow her everywhere.

Pat frowns. “Well, if you’re almost passing out, that’s pretty serious. Why don’t you call this one a day and sit out on training?”

“It’s _fine,”_ Rick insists. “I’m not _dying._ It’s a stomach ache. This kind of bullshit just happens sometimes. I’m fine.”

“We don’t train while we’re in pain,” Yolanda recites, wrapping her knuckles even though she knows they’re probably just going to be running drills today. “Unless we want to get babied for three hours because we twisted our ankle on the walk over.”

“You were hurt! It doesn’t matter how, it just matters that you were!” Pat throws his hands up and immediately drops them when Rick twitches back. “Okay. Yolanda, Beth, Court, go do some homework flashcards or something. Rick, c’mere. Sit down.”

Beth squeezes Rick’s shoulder and follows Yolanda and Courtney into the back room. Rick doesn’t sit, just watches Pat mistrustfully with his arms crossed. He looks like he hasn’t slept in a few days. God, he wishes teachers being mandatory reporters actually _meant_ something.

“I told you I’m not sick,” Rick grumbles as Pat continues motioning for him to sit. At least he finally does it, and now it looks less like he’s crossing his arms and more like he’s hugging himself. “I’m _completely fine.”_

“Where does your stomach hurt?” Pat asks instead of dignifying that obvious lie with a response. “Is it hurting here?” He cups his hand against the right side of his own abdomen. “Or here?” Moves it across. “Or somewhere else? And when was the last time you ate?”

Rick’s looking at him like he’s crazy, but dragging Sylvester’s dumb ass to the hospital at three in the morning because his appendix ruptured and he refused to admit he was in agonizing pain is _not_ an experience he’s looking to repeat. Finally, he says, “...On the bottom, I guess? On both sides? I ate lunch at school.”

“Okay, good. So it’s probably not your appendix. Are you nauseous? Having headaches?” He’s piecing together a theory. Call it a hunch. Or just years of lying about what’s potentially the exact same thing.

“Yeah. A headache.” Rick rubs his knuckles with his thumb.

“Alright. If you go up top there’s a cabinet of first aid stuff, there are a ton of different pain pills in there, and some other stuff you can grab if you need it. It’s kind of an all-purpose emergency kit.” He hesitates. “Does your uncle know you’re… not feeling well? Do you have stuff in the house you can take?”

“Like he’d give a shit,” Rick mutters. He stands and stomps up the stairs. Pat doesn’t follow him. He’ll probably feel safer if he can just take what he needs.

He’s offered Rick a place to stay before. He already knows he’s been spending more nights on the floor of Courtney’s room than anywhere else these past few weeks. But he’s always been turned down, probably because of that car he loves so much. And he gets it, he really does, his car is his baby too, on top of the connection they both have to their families because of it, but he also needs to make sure he’s _safe_ above everything else. Where he’s living now just isn’t that.

Rick looks more comfortable when he comes downstairs, even though the pills couldn’t have kicked in yet, and rolls his eyes when Pat gestures for him to sit down again.

“Hey, we need Courtney’s team at the top of their game,” he reasons, “and you’re not there if you’ve got a stomach ache. Is there anything else I can get you? I’ve got everything in here. Water bottles, heating pad, emergency snacks…”

Rick squeezes his knees. “I don’t need anything. It’s just—this just happens sometimes. Like I said. It’s just extra bad this time.” He’s looking anywhere but at Pat. Shoulders curled in. Maybe he’s just jumping to conclusions, but he remembers that posture. It’s not something you forget no matter how inconsequential it seems. “...The heating pad would be nice, though.”

“Sure. I’ll grab it for you. You’re still out of training for the day, but if you’re feeling better tomorrow we can work on managing how you’re feeling. If this happens a lot, you’ll have to work on moving through it. Maybe you could put the suit on and see how well you can move in it. We’ll have to make adjustments to it anyway, it’s too big on you.” Hopefully Courtney knows how to do that, because the best stitch job _he_ can do is patching a jacket. And hell, might as well throw the kid a lifeline. “But it can’t be too compressive. I was running around in a sweater and I still jacked my ribs up by accident being an idiot.”

He goes to get the pad from the back room, waving to the rest of the kids as he does. Beth apparently took his instructions to do flashcards seriously, and is badgering Yolanda and Courtney to do the same as she holds out the cards for Hootie to hold in his beak. Courtney shoots finger guns back at him.

He almost plugs the cord into the wall next to the bench Rick is sitting on before thinking better of it. “The couch in the back will be more comfortable,” he decides. “Shoulda just made you come with me in the first place.”

Before Pat can start trying to usher Rick back the way he just came, Rick grabs onto his arm.

“You know, right?”

So he wasn’t wrong, then. “Yeah. Do the girls?”

“I haven’t said, but—you guessed, so they could too, right? How did _you?”_ He doesn’t want to hope, and he certainly doesn’t want to sound like he wants approval from anyone. This is _his_ business. Nobody was even supposed to find out about it except the teachers who don’t pick up on it not being just a nickname. Just switch while he goes to and from the house and nobody will find out. (Of _course_ people could tell. He’d never _really_ pass. But couldn’t he pretend he did?) But… Pat _said…_ just now he _said…_

“Lotta experience. I couldn’t have been that much older than you when I worked it all out. Stealth for at least… I dunno, fifteen years? Been _out_ longer than that, but…” Pat shrugs. He doesn’t have to go into _everything_ now.

There’s a memory. Sylvester frowning. _“So you’re just… a guy with extra steps?”_

Laughing. Like a real weight has been taken off his shoulders, because it has. _“Yeah, buddy. Pretty much.”_

Rick studies him for a second and his voice cuts through the afterimage. “Did my dad—did Hourman know?”

He nods. “With things being as dangerous as they were, it was necessary to know that kind of thing in the field. Never know who you’re gonna be giving emergency treatment to.” Guessing what Rick’s going to ask next, he carefully sets his hand on his shoulder. He’s jumpier about touch from adult men than he is about the girls doing it. Best to be careful. “He would’ve supported you. I _know_ he would’ve.”

Pat’s pretty sure this is the first time he’s ever seen Rick smile. If it’s not, it’s certainly never been this wide before.

* * *

“I think the most I could do is only, like, three,” Yolanda says critically.

“No way! Five at _least!”_ Courtney objects.

“Wow,” Pat says, not looking up from the article he’s reading, “I sure hope the two of you aren’t talking about how many backflips Yolanda would be able to land if she jumped off my mech’s head.”

“Great, ‘cause we’re not!” Courtney claps her hands. “We’re talking about _front_ flips.”

Luckily, they’re all saved from Yolanda becoming a spot on the floor by the arrival of Beth and by extension dinner. That gets Rick out from under the car Pat’s letting him play with, too, and apparently Beth noticed he was having a rough week and stopped to pick up some of his favorite candy at the gas station—Pat reminds himself to pay her back for that, since he only gave her enough money for the burgers—so everybody wins.

Yolanda and Courtney stay next to each other. They’re practically inseparable now. It’s cute. Barb had said one of Courtney’s biggest worries had been about making new friends once they’d completed the cross-country move. She’d known most of the ones in California since she was a toddler. And while he’s not sure why, Yolanda clearly doesn’t have a lot of friends of her own if she can spend so much time at the garage and at their house. It’s good that they’ve found friends again—and he’s pretty sure they became friends _before_ Courtney offered her the Wildcat mantle. Mostly, anyway.

The thing is…

Well, he’s not really sure if Courtney notices. But it’s pretty hard not to. Pat’s not the best at reading people but it’s so obvious he’s surprised nobody seems to have brought it up. Beth’s worse at interpreting things than he is but those goggles are observant by design. Rick might’ve noticed, and if he has Pat sincerely doubts he cares, but he probably would’ve at least mentioned it.

There’s just no way nobody else has noticed the blinking neon sign above Yolanda’s head proclaiming how deeply head over heels in love with Courtney she is.

It’s _adorable,_ honestly. Yolanda’s a sweet kid—and he thinks Ted genuinely would’ve liked her—and so is her giant crush. Courtney could do a lot worse than her, and probably not a whole lot better. Really, the biggest issue is that if they do get together but it ends up not working out as so many high-school age relationships don’t, the fallout will impact the dynamic of the entire team.

Despite that unfortunate possibility, it still makes him smile to watch Yolanda laugh at every one of Courtney’s bad jokes.

By the time they’ve eaten all their food and Courtney has sufficiently bullied him for putting hot sauce on his burger even though the other kids say it’s not actually weird and she has the same odd food cravings for nearly the exact same (though still somehow opposite) reason, Yolanda has shifted so close to Courtney that they’re practically on top of each other. While Courtney talks about how the scabs on her calves from where she ended up sliding on pavement to hold up that car for Rick have almost healed, Yolanda’s looking at her like she hung the moon.

“Courtney, you’re still on trash duty,” Beth reminds, and Courtney mock groans as she accepts the plastic bag and marches over to dump it in the little garbage can. 

Yolanda stifles her laughter with her hand before checking her watch with a regretful expression. “Thanks for dinner, but I gotta get going,” she says apologetically, standing to grab her bag. “I said I’d be home by eight.”

“Oh, I’ll drive you,” Pat offers. “It’s already dark out, I’d rather you didn’t walk.”

Yolanda hesitates for a second before nodding. Usually Courtney would tag along—hell, usually they’d be lucky if the car _wasn’t_ completely full by the time they actually got a move on—but like she reminded her that it was her turn to take care of the trash, Beth also reminds her that she needs to study for her chemistry test the next day, and Rick wants to crawl back under that car.

So it’s just one half of their little dynamic duo that climbs into his car.

And because it’s been on his mind, and because he’s never met a situation he didn’t turn into an awkward disaster, Pat decides to ask, “So, are you and Courtney going to go to that dance?” The way Yolanda jumps in place makes him feel kind of bad. He wasn’t trying to upset her. “Sorry. You don’t have to tell me.”

“I can’t go.” Yolanda shifts uncomfortably in her seat. “My parents said I can’t. So. No.”

“Okay.” And that’s that, for a little while. Just the two of them driving in tense silence. Until—

“I could tell your parents you’re coming over to study. I know you said you’re grounded, but I might be able to convince them that’s really what you’re doing, since you already spend a lot of ‘study time’ with us already,” Pat offers. He knows her parents are strict, but they’ve been willing to let him “supervise” her before. Pretty much every day, in fact. 

Yolanda fidgets. “School events aren’t really my thing,” she says softly. “I don’t—people will be looking at me if I go. Especially if I go with…” She swallows. Then, even quieter. “You won’t tell my parents, will you? That I…”

“Of course not,” he assures her. “I won’t tell them anything.”

She looks out the window at the houses going by. “It’s not too obvious, is it?”

“Beth and Rick either don’t know or don’t care. Courtney definitely doesn’t know. Barb might, but she won’t tell your parents either, I promise.” He glances at her. “Just because of Courtney, or…?”

She curls in on herself. As Wildcat, she practically projects confidence. Less like nothing bad can happen to her when she wears that suit, and more like whatever does happen is something she knows she can take. It lingers with her whenever she’s around the rest of the kids. Now she just looks like a nervous teenager. “My brother knows I like girls. But no one else does.”

There are a lot of reasons she might not have told them, so he leaves that alone. Instead—“I’m sorry if I made you feel like you had to tell me. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

“Courtney said you were cool, I guess.” Yolanda plays with the string of her hoodie. “Just don’t tell my parents. Please. That’s—that’s for me.”

There’s a memory. Two people in an old living room eating sandwiches while one of them gripes about having to be benched because of a fractured shin and how humiliating that is until Pat gives him something to _really_ get embarrassed about.

 _“So, you and Johnny Thunder, huh?”_ Dodging a throw pillow that gets hurled at his head. Laughing. _“I swear, I won’t tell him you’re scared of rabbits.”_

 _“Shut up!”_ Sylvester turning bright red and fumbling for more things to lob at him. _“You’re the worst sidekick ever!”_

 _“Hey!”_ Throwing the pillow back at him. _“I’m the reason you don’t have anything_ worse _than a few weeks of bed rest!”_

 _“Nah, I think getting killed by Harlequin and Johnny Sorrow would be_ miles _better than this.”_

“I won’t tell them anything,” he repeats.

Yolanda does end up coming over to their house the night of the dance—he’s hoping they don’t realize he doesn't know which one it is—and her and Courtney spend their “study session” alternating between watching cheesy romance movies and booing whenever a kiss happened and seeing who can catch the most jelly beans in their mouth. He buys her a bag of just her favorite flavor to make up even more for putting her on the spot when he shouldn’t have and gives it to her when she leaves.

The dance apparently sucks for everyone who ends up going, anyway. At least the two of them have fun.

* * *

Courtney never has to tell Pat about part of it, because her mom does it for her.

That makes it sound like Barbara just blurted it out, which isn’t true. She asked, just like she had asked before bringing it up to her two previous long-term—but not as long-term as Pat—boyfriends, and like before, she’d gotten a go-ahead. 

It also makes it sound like Courtney would’ve rather done it herself, which is another thing that’s not true. It’s exhausting, and it can be dangerous. It’s so much easier when Barbara does it for her.

So yeah. She doesn’t have to be the one to tell Pat she’s trans, and that’s fine with her. _Pat_ didn’t get to be the one to tell her the same thing, that had been Barbara after they’d met up for a fourth date and he’d given her permission, so… fair is fair.

It could still be fun to be the one to spring the _other_ thing on him—and yeah, she knows it isn’t usually fun for people to come out, but she knows he’s going to be irritatingly supportive, so why not do something with it?—but it’s more likely it’ll just end up being said in a blindingly boring way. She makes a couple plans and scraps them all, because they’re all pretty stupid. It’ll probably happen in a dumb way anyways. That’s how she came out to her _mom_ for the second time. Completely by accident. She got Mike in a fun way regardless. So it’s probably fine if it’s normal and casual with Pat. 

Especially since even though it’s been a couple years since she was thirteen and told her mom she liked girls, she still doesn’t _quite_ know what her sexuality actually _is._ It’s hard to tell! She knows for sure she likes girls—women—so why does the part about not knowing if she’s into guys trip her up so much?

Except… somehow it never happens. She never comes out. First just because she’s not sure how to tell him, and it’s not like it’ll matter if him and her mom break up anyway. Then it’s because of the wedding, which at least makes her realize they’re actually doing this for the long haul. Then it’s because she’s mad at him over the move, because even though her mom _says_ it’s not entirely Pat’s fault, it _totally_ is. _Then_ it just slips her mind, because everything else is so hectic and her whole life has been flipped on its head.

Which sounds like a terrible excuse, because how does a person just _forget_ to come out to someone? But it’s the truth. Courtney just… forgets. By the time she remembers, it seems unimportant in the grand scheme of things. There are _supervillains to fight_ and a town to save. 

Her being gay doesn’t seem all that relevant anymore.

Not even when she realizes she’s fallen in love with Yolanda.

Maybe it isn’t love. They’re both teenagers, and everyone says teenagers don’t know what love really is. But she feels _something_ and it’s strong and it makes her face go hot when Yolanda helps her practice throwing punches and it fills her stomach with butterflies when they sit next to each other during lunch and even if it’s not whatever the adult version of love looks like it still means something.

It can’t be more important than the mission, so she squishes it down. They’re supposed to save the town and the world, so she can’t get worried about a crush. Even after Cameron asks her out despite the fact that it’s pretty obvious he only has eyes for one person in Courtney’s friend group and it’s certainly not her, Yolanda, or Beth. She _wants_ to have some kind of normal high school experience, but it’s obvious that can’t happen until they’ve successfully thwarted whatever weird plan the Injustice Society has come up with. So she’ll just hold out until then.

Apparently she doesn’t have as good of a grasp on the situation as she thinks she does, because she never even notices that Yolanda’s doing the exact same thing.

Not the brightest idea either of them have had, making out while Courtney’s got her arm in a sling and Yolanda’s just managed to get the—thankfully relatively minor—head wound she sustained to stop bleeding, but at least they’ve stopped dancing around each other long enough for something to happen.

It’s not Yolanda’s first kiss. Not her fourth, or her fifth, or maybe even her tenth, because the thing about being in what was supposed to be a long-term and committed relationship as a hormonal teenager is that a lot of kissing happens. It’s not really Courtney’s first kiss, either. It doesn’t have to be for it to be special. It’s the first one between _them_ and that counts for something.

And then an emergency happens and they almost die, of course, but that’s fine, because neither of them can stop smiling even through the lecture about how they should’ve known better than to run off on their own while injured, _we can’t keep having this same talk every other Sunday, Courtney,_ and there are fireworks going off under their skin whenever they touch each other.

She’s still not totally sure if she just likes girls. But when she looks at it, nothing she’s felt for another person has been like this. Maybe it’s because she’s never really been into guys. Maybe it’s because it’s easy to bond when two people are constantly in life-or-death situations together. Maybe it’s just because Yolanda is _that_ special—she’s very partial to that theory in particular.

Whatever the reason, it’s cool to have a girlfriend, even if they’re both constantly worried about Yolanda’s family—minus Alex, he’s good at keeping secrets and apparently has been since he first looked out his window and saw his big sister climbing down the side of their house like _freaking Spider-man, Yolanda that’s_ so _cool—_ finding out.

Those are the only people they hide it from. Everyone else knows. Probably. Rick and Beth know. Cameron knows because Henry supposedly inadvertently told the whole school, which also means everybody else at Blue Valley High knows. Courtney’s family knows. If Beth knows, then her parents probably know. So yeah. Everyone knows.

So Courtney braces herself against the kitchen island and squints in the vague direction of the living room while Pat puts another bag of the same brand of popcorn she just horrifically burnt into the microwave.

They’re watching a zombie movie. _They_ meaning Courtney, Yolanda, Beth, and Rick. Any tentative truce with Henry does not extend to movie night invitations, not yet and maybe not ever, and after the first decapitation Courtney’s mom made Mike go upstairs. When she left to get more popcorn, Beth was sleepily citing statistics on the best ways to survive natural zombie-like disasters into Rick’s shoulder while he got his ass absolutely handed to him by Yolanda in a thumb war tournament. Judging by how close the movie is to wrapping up and how late it is, they’ll probably all end up sleeping there tonight. 

Like normal kids.

“I’m gay,” she says when Pat pulls the fresh, not-incinerated popcorn out and starts pouring it into a bowl. Normal and casual and not fun at all, because evidently that was the best and only way to really do it when someone was a normal kid living a normal life.

“...I know,” he says, confused. “I mean, I’m glad you told me, and I support you, but I know. You were just making out with Yolanda on the couch ten minutes ago.”

“I know you know.” She drums her fingers on the countertop and takes the bowl. “But I wanted to tell you anyway. ‘Cause I didn’t get to say anything the first time. So it’s fair.”

There’s a memory. Fidgeting hands. A reminder that it’s been a week and a half since he’s seen him. _“It… it wasn’t a joke.”_

 _“I know.”_ God, he loves this dumb kid. 

_“Yeah. So. Thanks. For being cool about it. I guess. And not telling my parents.”_

_“Of course. I’m not telling them anything you don’t want me to tell them. I get it.”_

_“...Oh. Right. I…”_ Sudden pressure because apparently almost two years of crime-fighting have left Sylvester with enough muscle to sufficiently knock the wind out of him and it’s good to know his hugs are now qualifiable as a deadly weapon. _“Thanks. Again.”_

He squeezes her shoulder to bring himself back. “Well, hi—”

“Don’t.” Courtney spins around and pokes him. She hopes she’s coming across as serious as she wants to, because she knows what he wants to do is unforgivable. “Don’t you dare. You finish that sentence and you’re _dead_ to me.”

He rolls his eyes and pulls her into a hug. She hugs back tightly even though she has to push up onto her toes to do it properly. It’s nice to just be held. It’s always nice. Like when her mom hugs her after she has nightmares about the world collapsing and her hands getting cut open.

“Hi, gay,” Pat whispers to her once she’s sufficiently let her guard down because of his self-proclaimed superb hugging skills. “I’m Pat.”

Courtney’s shriek of betrayal and subsequent attack with the bowl of popcorn is so loud the other kids come running in prepared to fight a supervillain.

Five minutes later, the floor is sufficiently covered in popcorn, Beth is pulling rainbow sprinkles out of her hair, Yolanda and Rick are checking each other over for any stray kernels, Pat has a strainer on his head and seems perfectly comfortable leaving it up there, and Courtney’s laughing so hard she’s crying.

Yeah. This is the best it could have possibly gone. Normal kid or not. 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm @augustheart on tumblr, and while I know being told the LGBT rep in Stargirl is a spoiler probably means it's Cameron considering the New-52 throwaway line or someone like Todd who hasn't shown up yet but is surely going to, I'd like it to mean "every single protagonist." All of them.


End file.
